


Dust and Beyond

by FanficMagicalGirl



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ashes Scene in Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Oneshot, Peter Parker Dad Squad, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Mortem angst, Precious Peter Parker, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 06:47:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16321172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanficMagicalGirl/pseuds/FanficMagicalGirl
Summary: In the end, Thanos beat them. He left them crushed and alone on his own home world. Peter Parker knows it. They're superheroes, the good guys, and yet they failed in the end. None of them could do anything. Their universe hangs on the shoulders of one planet, because they couldn't do anything. He has to watch things fall apart around him, figuratively and literally. But he is least of all prepared fall apart himself, let alone what comes next.





	Dust and Beyond

They’d lost. They’d been so close, and yet they’d lost because Mr. Lord couldn’t keep it together. When he found out Thanos had killed Gamora, he’d completely lost it. Peter might almost have been jealous if he wasn’t so terrified. Loving someone so much that you’d risk everything to avenge their death was so foreign to him. Of course, he’d do almost anything for MJ, but to sacrifice the universe for her memory was beyond what he could do. 

He knelt down in the red dust of Titan, stripping off his mask as the tears began to come. They were going to die trapped on an alien planet, because he’d failed. “Kid, it’s okay. The heroes on Earth can stop him. I mean, of course they’re not as great as I am, but they can do it. Vision, Wanda, Bruce, Rhodes… Captain America… they can beat him. He won’t get the last stone,” Mr. Stark sighed, putting his hand gently on Peter’s shoulder and hoisting him to his feet. 

“But I could have… I should have… if I’d just…”

“You did your best. Whatever happens, none of this is your fault.”

“Something is happening,” he barely heard Mantis say. He turned to look at her, eyes still fuzzy, making everyone and everything look blurry. He blinked his eyes, trying to clear his vision. Slowly, everything came into focus around him, yet Mantis herself stayed hazy, as though she were dissolving around the edges, and, as he watched, she grew blurrier and blurrier. It wasn’t until her body and face were completely gone, blurred beyond recognition, that he registered it. Something was wrong. As Peter watched her turn to ash, disappearing as if Mantis had never been any more than that, just dust blowing across the surface of a dead planet, he realized what it was. Thanos had won. It was all over. 

“Quill…” Drax was the first to speak, turning to look at his hands as they began to disintegrate. His body slowly turned to ash, disappearing like smoke on the wind. Peter could see Mr. Lord beginning to break down, grief washing over him as what had happened sunk in. Mr. Stark turned to him.

“Steady, Quill,” he said, trying to keep Mr. Lord under control through his pain and terror. He simply turned to him, jacket flecked with ash.

“Oh man…” he moaned, voice betraying just how broken he was, shattered by the death of Gamora, and by the horrific events he had just witnessed. He crumbled, dust dissipating in the gentle Titan wind alongside his companions. Mr. Stark turned angrily towards Doctor Strange, prepared to berate him, or perhaps to order him to do something, but he stops at the sight of the doctor’s fading fingers.

“There was no other way,” Doctor Strange says, using his last words to justify giving up the time stone, the decision that lead them to this point. As he disappeared, Peter finally broke down, watching all that was left of the heroes vanish from sight. 

Mr. Stark turned to him, just as he began to feel it, a light tingling, as though his whole body was asleep. “Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good…” he muttered, stepping forwards. 

“You’re alright,” Mr. Stark said, desperately trying to comfort him. He stumbled toward him.

“I don't- I don't know what's happening…” He collapsed onto him, arms latching around Mr. Stark’s shoulders, shaking and trying to hold on. It wasn’t until he saw the ash that he realized what was happening. He was going to die. “I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go…” he gasped out, choking as the tears returned. Mr. Stark gently pushed him to the ground. He exhaled deeply, making eye contact. “I’m sorry,” he sighed as the world went dark. 

For an eternity, there was nothing. It could have been seconds; it could have been millenia, before Peter could see again, not that there was anything to see but an infinity of falling through nothing, alone in the vast, unyielding emptiness. Grief flooded him over and over, the reality, the finality of death washing over him. This was all there was, all that was left for him. There was no happy ending, no paradise in the afterlife. There was just the interminable nothingness of the void. Naive as he was, he had wanted to believe there had to be something after the end, something more than eternal solitude and darkness. 

Maybe this was what he deserved. He’d tried so hard, and yet he’d failed. He’d lost. He wasn’t good enough, and now he was paying the price. It was just fair, after all. You cause the deaths of half the universe, you don’t get to go to heaven. All you got was nothingness. As Peter fell, he began hallucinating. MJ. Ned. Aunt May. Mr. Stark. Happy. Mantis. Drax. Mr. Lord. Doctor Strange. All of them looming over him angrily, each a silent reminder of just how badly he had failed. He cried, tears streaming off his face and disappearing into the void. 

He didn’t know when he started feeling it, like an itch at the edge of his consciousness that he didn’t know how to scratch. Peter reached towards it, focusing as hard as he could on that feeling, hoping to grasp hold of and understand it. He never managed to catch it. He struggled and struggled. He imagined taking hold of his consciousness like a sheet and pulling the part inward. He imagined zooming in on the feeling, bringing it to the forefront and focusing in on it. He tried hundreds of different method to get a grip of the feeling, yet nothing worked. Peter had failed yet again. He couldn’t do it. He was so ready to be done. He let go, mind going blank, letting the emptiness around him consume him. 

As his mind went blank, the image of Doctor Strange appeared before him once more. This time it was different, somehow. “Peter.” He froze. It spoke. They’d never done that, they shouldn’t be able to do that. “Peter.” Why was it speaking? How was it speaking? “Peter!” He snapped to attention, shocked out of his thoughts. “Peter. Come with me,” he ordered, reaching out to him. Peter didn’t move. He would not take orders from a hallucination. It reached toward him, taking hold of his arm. Another anomaly: he’d never been touched. This hallucination was weird. It shouldn’t be doing this. He could almost believe that this might be the real Doctor Strange, had he not known better. Doctor Strange was dead, and so was he. “Peter. Listen to me. We have to go. I can help you. Just trust me.” Peter closed his eyes, willing the apparition to disappear, to leave him alone. “I know you’re scared. You have to come with me. I promise I can help you, but you have to let me.” He reached out, trembling, and grabbed Doctor Strange’s arm.

“Okay. I’ll go,” Peter sighed, resigned. At least, as far as he knew, it could guess much worse. He pulled him closer, as though for a hug, and they disappeared. 

“Jeez Doc. Took you long enough,” a familiar voice shouted. Peter spun around, eyes taking in the scene around him. Mr. Lord sat at a table with Mantis, Drax, and what appeared to be a sentient tree. 

“Not my fault Peter here wouldn’t stop wallowing in despair and let his mind become empty enough for me to get in,” Doctor Strange said, pointing to him. As Peter looked around, he noticed quite a few people, including several who he recognized from TV or from Germany: Bucky Barnes, Falcon, Wanda Maximoff, King T’Challa, Nick Fury. They were all just sitting calmly at various tables, talking.

“What is this place? Doctor Strange, where are we? How are all of them here?” Peter asked, confused.

“An alternate dimension, abandoned by its original inhabitants long ago, now our base of operations, if you will. I’ve been gathering the heroes killed by Thanos to help us. Now all that’s left to do is find a way back to our own world. I have magic, and Wanda has the potential to learn it; I’ve begun teaching her since I brought her here. The “Guardians of the Galaxy” over there purport to have some scientific expertise, plus it’s evident that you do. I know there’s a way. I’ve seen futures where we make it back. We just have to find it.” He gently pushed Peter toward a table, where the two of them sat down. Looking around at the gathered heroes, working once more to save the world, Peter, for the first time in who-knows-how-long, thought maybe, just maybe, things were going to be okay.


End file.
